I think this is all BS. Cerci, Dzemaili and Pandev is what we should expect. Porto are an actual smart selling club, they don't sell their star players on the cheap like complete idiots. Martinez would easily cost over 30m, the other names are just completely depressing, I'd rather just Pazzo

If Silva was 'easily worth' £60M then you're as bad as all the rich clubs for devaluing money.

And Zlatan was 30 when he moved. You just don't pay more than about £20M for a 30 year old. No one does.

Think you're trivialising the deal completely for the sake of attacking Galliani. And you know I can't stand him either. But that was a good deal.

Swansea will want silly money for Bony after how fantastic he was last season. I'd have liked us to fight Napoli to bring in Michu on loan.

Yup, especially since Galliani was under pressure to sell the players, which makes it harder to negotiate. (If anything, I blame the Berlu family on this one.)

As for Balo, I am not a huge fan (he has been a big disappointment AFAIAC), but if it was up to me I would have held on to him one more year in the hope of getting a little more out of him in the future.

In any case, we need to see who we get now.

Yup, Michu would have been great (a bit injury-prone, though).

You're thinking English money, we got 60m for both of them, that's euros, not pounds.

Zlatan was 30, who cares, he's a born winner and he's still the difference maker now at PSG, we bought him for 24m from Barca, sold him at a loss, plus gave them Silva for a mere 40m when they bought Luiz for 50m pounds FFS!!

How am I as bad as rich clubs? So you mean to tell me that just because the state of football has been reduced to what it has been we shouldn't be getting our fair piece of the pie?? So you think Porto, Atletico, etc are bad because they milk clubs ike PSG, Real, Barca, Chelsea, etc for all they're worth when they're selling their best players? No they know how to do good business in this current climate.

We are just horrible negotiators, and yes FM, Galliani was under pressure to make the sale, but who gave Zlatan an 18m per year deal before tax when he knew we could never sustain those kinds of figures on top of what we were already paying the senators after the last CL win who all got big bumper deals while already in decline

To do this 10 days before the Serie A kick off is just insane, Galliani better have some sort of plan of how he can replace Balo plus cover the areas that we're sorely lacking in or the San Siro will probably be empty once the season kicks off, it's already at an all time low with just 10000 season tickets sold. And I can't imagine we're making a fortune in merchandising either.

If we could get Rabiot, Cerci and Martinez I would be happy. Probably gonna end up with only Taarabt and Pandev, though.

Martinez is out of the question, Porto want big money for him, while with Rabiot it's a complicated story because of his issues with PSG

I'd prefer Grenier over him if we're going to go after a French player anyway

Glad balotelli is out! Decision obviously involved Inzaghi, as the replacement is probably already in agreement with the club, just not publicized in the media yet.

Wideman or central midfielder, don't mind either, just that he fits Inzaghi's 4-3-3.

On the 4-3-3, it has been adapted within our youth ranks and is to be set as a blueprint for easy integration of youth graduates into the first team.

I don't want Rabiot. I'm pretty shocked at the low cost of the transfer and the timing. My only reasoning is that Berlusconi definitely wanted him out.

I don't get why they randomly chose 4-3-3, we've never had the players for it, we still don't considering our p!ss poor midfield and lack of real wingers (aside from Menez)

As for the Balo deal, I don't understand how some of you can actually think this is good, but whatever. Other Milan boards have gone nuts over this because they all know there won't be an adequate replacement, and neither will the money be re-invested into other areas (especially considering how meagre 20m is in today's market)

Exactly. For me there are two things at play:

1. Pippo doesn't want Balo. And wants a traditional striker.
2. The reverse-Pato. The Berluscas want a player out. Out he goes.

Yes, but what happens now, we don't have the money to buy a new striker who brings the same level of quality, we still have major issues in midfield, we still don't have the right winger Pippo wanted oh and here's the gem of it all, we still owe City 12m for Balo (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Fee confirmed at £16M. That's about 22M Euros. We've done worse deals.